5. SummerfestSummerfest: Biggest Outdoor Music Festival that is held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Fest brings in over 100,000 people in a day. It has many types of music playing every day, with over 100 stages. It brings in all the heavyweights from metal to country, even R&B and hip-hop. Summerfest has something for everyone to…

Leslie West will never be known as the “Eric Bedard of heavy rock.” The former Mountain guitarist/vocalist, who’s now well into his 60s, is apparently un-fucking-stoppable. Mere weeks ago the brother, who is diabetic, had to have emergency surgery to amputate one of his legs just below the knee. For most 60-something guitarists that would…

So after managing to squeeze out only one record since reuniting nine years ago — the massively underrated Broken Valley — Life of Agony is apparently disbanding, sadly, and Keith Caputo has seized upon the opportunity of the band’s farewell tour to brashly announce her most controversial transition since briefly morphing into Whitfield Crane during…

Avowed rock atavists Gentlemans Pistols aren’t the sort of chaps to limit their appreciation of British pop culture to the pressed rat and warthog of ’60s/’70s classic rock. Catching up with vocalist/guitarist James Atkinson and drummer Stuart Dobbins after they’ve had a post-festival night battering the ale seemed as good a time as any to…

If metal was a mother, beer would replace breast milk. The folks at esteemed N.Y.C. drinking establishment Idle Hands Bar in the fragrant East Village neighborhood know this very well. (Do your beer gut a favor, and follow them @IdleHandsBar.) They’re teaming up with the brewmasters at Harpoon and Speakeasy to bring you Learning to…

Welcome to The Lazarus Pit, a biweekly look at should-be classic metal records that don’t get nearly enough love, stuff that’s essential listening for students of extreme metal that you’ve probably never heard of.  Stuff that we’re too lazy to track down the band members to do a Hall Of Fame for.  This week, we…

A few months back I spoke to Josh Homme about the reissue of Queens of the Stone Age’s eponymous debut album, and, like all alpha-dudes from bands of a certain size, phone time was strictly rationed to 30 minutes and no longer. But he’s nothing if not a rule-breaker and talked way longer. That first…

Back in the early 2000’s, my old band (who had a song called “Twitter” almost a decade before, well… you know) was signed to a Swedish label called Lunasound Recordings. The label was run by a gentleman with obviously impeccable tastes named Stuart Ness and his wife Chelsea Krook (an ex-member of the “apocalyptic folk”…

Finally. Waking the grunge: a Soundgarden tour. I creamed my flannel pajamas. Fuck Coachella, this was it. A reunion I thought would never happen because Chris hated the idea. Besides saying he put a lid on it, in ’09 he cynically said, “Someone in my position, if I wanted to sell out I’d just get…

Sean Yseult, White Zombie bassplayer, owner of a fun to say last name and the woman responsible for (something that’s supposed to be comical but comes off creepy and gross) in my youth, has released a one of a kind recording featuring herself, Phil Anselmo and Dime Motherfucking Bag Motherfucking Darrell.